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Fraud*According to the Collins English Dictionary 10th Edition fraud can be defined as: "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage".[1] In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g. in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain*As defined in Wikipedia

Sunday, November 28, 2010

So if the top 1% of the population of the United States enjoys almost 25% of the wealth, what will America look like in another 50 years? We are well on the way to peonage if the trend continues and especially if banks like Goldman Sachs increase their asset management divisions by "doubling the size of GSAM" every five years. The new aristocracy has arisen and it it FINANCIAL writ large and GS writ larger.

Growing inequality at the heart of the US economy is being laid bare this holiday season.

Conspicuous consumption is back on Wall Street, in anticipation of bonuses close to pre-recession levels. Some American companies have just posted the largest quarterly profits ever. Meanwhile, one in five families is relying on food stamps to get by and unemployment remains stuck at around 10%.

For three years, since massive government bailouts of the financial system, New York’s bankers, traders and hedge fund managers have been wary of flaunting their wealth – many remember the outrage that greeted revelations that Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain had bought a $35,000 toilet, as his firm imploded. Last Christmas, Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit told employees: “We will be judged in the court of public opinion.”

But this year, shameless extravagance is making a comeback. One investment analyst booked hip-hop star Lil’ Kim for his Halloween party. Another paid Playboy bunnies to dance for guests behind a satin screen. A Morgan Stanley trader was sacked for hiring a dwarf for his friend’s stag night in Miami and trying to handcuff him to the groom. And business is booming at the most expensive shops – luxury jeweller Tiffany reported a 7% increase in sales worldwide.

The Japanese bank Nomura has estimated that America’s top five financial firms – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase – have set aside almost $90 billion for bonuses. “I did not expect compensation would come back the way it has,” bonus analyst Alan Johnson told the New York Times. “I underestimated the industry’s resiliency.”

"We will be judged in the court of public opinion."

Vikram Pandit, chief executive, Citigroup

In his new account of the financial crisis, Crash Of The Titans, Greg Farrell blames Wall Street’s obsession with bonuses: “Why did Lehman Brothers go out of business? Because their people kept doing real estate deals long after the market had turned. It produced bigger bonuses for them. Why did AIG keep selling those foolhardy insurance police on CDOs? Because it was easy money and led to bigger bonuses.”

The final amounts won’t be known until January, when fourth quarter results come in. Analysts will be watching Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein’s bonus with particular interest. Two years ago he took nothing, after his company benefited from a huge injection of taxpayer money. Last year, he was awarded $9 million, paid in stock – not much for the most profitable firm on Wall Street. This year, he is expected to come close to matching the record he set in 2007: $68.5m.

On Monday, the US Commerce Department reported that American businesses earned record profits in the third quarter, at an annual rate of $1.66 trillion. But few economists expect companies to start hiring soon. Most of the gains made in the last year were in productivity – doing more with fewer workers – and from multi-national corporations who benefited from an economic boom in India, China and Brazil. Taking away financial sector and “rest of world” profits paints a truer picture of the economy. The richest 1% of Americans now take in almost a quarter of all national income. In the late 1970s their share was less than 10%.

When last year’s Wall Street bonuses were announced, President Barack Obama called them “shameful” and “the height of irresponsibility”. But the tough regulation he vowed to introduce is full of loopholes and it now looks like he will also back down on his campaign promise to raise taxes for people earning more than $200,000 a year.

Republicans have signalled that they may be open to compromise, saying they’ll prolong unemployment benefits in exchange for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. But shortly before Congress broke up for the Thanksgiving holiday, they blocked an effort to extend benefits, meaning that two million people will not pick up a welfare cheque in December.

A failure to rein in financial industry excesses could prove costly to Democrats – even though Republicans, more closely tied to Wall Street, will be the beneficiaries.

Democratic Senator Jim Webb said: “People say, ‘What’s the difference between these two parties? Neither of them is really going to take on Wall Street. If they don’t have the guts to take them on, I’m going to vote for the other people who can at least satisfy me on other issues, like abortion. Screw you guys.’ I understand that mindset.”

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COMMENTS:

Anonymous
said...

Our leadership..ie all parties have been compromised...

Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy

That would be big money — the big money that dominates our political system, regardless of who’s in power. Two years after the economic meltdown, most Americans now recognize that that money has inexorably institutionalized a caste system where everyone remains (at best) mired in economic stasis except the very wealthiest sliver.

The story of recent corporate political donations — which we may never learn in its entirety — is just beginning to be told. Bloomberg News reported after Election Day that the United States Chamber of Commerce’s anti-Democratic war chest included a mind-boggling $86 million contribution from the insurance lobby to fight the health care bill. The Times has identified other big chamber donors as Prudential Financial, Goldman Sachs and Chevron. These are hardly the small businesses that the chamber’s G.O.P. allies claim to be championing.

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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. … H.L. Mencken

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it…James Albert Michener, novelist (1907-1997)

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. … Thomas Paine 1737-1809, Anglo-American Political Theorist, Writer

Laws just or unjust may govern mens actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.: Sir Winston ChurchillWhen governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson

When cheaters prosper, we end up with the worst possible system and to call it a free market system is an obscenity. -William BlackWhen the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas JeffersonI believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. Thomas Jefferson - 1802

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